


Close Enough to Home

by helvel



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Multi, Omega Arthur, Russian Translation Available, in this gang we love and take care of Arthur Morgan, poly gang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 14:37:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21037835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helvel/pseuds/helvel
Summary: It ain’t the right time for a heat by far. They’re barely out of the mountains and still smarting from the Blackwater job. Their people need food, need money, need protecting from law and Pinkertons and O’Driscolls and all the other evils sons of bitches out there. They can’t afford to spend three days fucking until Arthur’s too strung out and sated to remember his own name.And yet, there’s a part of him that knows just how badly he needs this - to let go, just for a while. To surround himself in that heady blanket of pheromones of the pack around him, and to be taken care of. Just for a while...





	Close Enough to Home

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Почти дома](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25248952) by [Walter_K](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walter_K/pseuds/Walter_K)

> Nothing will stop me from writing weirder and weirder fics and you're just going to have to deal with it.

Yesterday, Arthur told himself it was nothing. He’d ignored the unsettled twist in his gut, the ache just behind his eyes, brushing it off as exhaustion from the past weeks of hard living. What a Goddamn fool he was. Now, he can see it for what it is, feel the prickling sensations seeping through his veins into every inch of him. 

His heat is starting.

The smells in Valentine threaten to overwhelm him, manure and filth and people - too many people. He makes it to the edge of town, but has to stop there, swaying in the saddle as his vision swims.

“Hey there, mister,” a voice says, “Where are you going?”

Arthur opens his eyes. There’s a man smiling up at him, drawing closer from where he’s come around the edge of the station. Alpha scent wafts off him, stronger than the stink of the rest of the town. Arthur’s jaw creaks.

“Away,” he grits out.

The alpha lifts his hands, a placating gesture, while the scent of attraction grows thicker and he watches Arthur with eyes like a hawk. “You should stay a while in town, here,” he says, reaching to take the horse’s reins. 

The horse shies away, tossing her head, and Arthur narrows his eyes. “_Move,_” he says. It comes out weaker than he intends, and the alpha doesn’t listen.

“You shouldn’t be riding,” the alpha soothes, moving closer again, “Not in your condition.”

He’s close enough to lay a hand on Arthur’s thigh. There’s half a second of biological pull, before Arthur slams his fist down into the alpha’s face.

“I said _ move! _” Arthur snarls, and takes off, leaving the alpha clutching his broken nose in the dirt.

It’s a good thing the horse knows her way back to camp, because Arthur’s in no state to lead her. It isn’t far, but riding is agony. Sweat beads on his forehead, his clothes feel like sandpaper against his skin. Arousal builds, too sharp and sudden to be truly pleasurable. 

It seems like an eternity passes before they’re trotting up the path to Horseshoe Overlook. Lenny’s at the edge of camp. He catches sight of Arthur drawing near. “Hey Arth- err...” He trails off, sniffing the air. “Wow. You got your heat, huh?”

“Yep,” Arthur grunts. Lenny takes the horse’s reins as he dismounts, and the ground tilts beneath his feet for a moment. He takes a shaky step forward, then another, making his way across camp on legs that feel like they’re about to give out beneath him. He must be stinking to the high heavens already, and anyone who hasn’t smelled him yet can surely see the wet patch of slick soaking through the back of his jeans. Arthur can’t bring himself to care. His skin is on fire, and he just needs to get his clothes off, _ now. _

His hat falls somewhere along the way, his jacket as well. He’s shrugging off his suspenders by the time he reaches his cot, working down his jeans. His brain is so lust-addled already that he completely forgets to take his boots off first. He wobbles against the edge of the wagon, trying to get them off, until Miss Grimshaw catches him by the arm.

“It always comes at the worst times, doesn’t it?” she tuts. Arthur’s heats are the only times he’s heard her sound that gentle. “And of course we’re out in the open like this, barely settled, not even a roof over our heads,” Miss Grimshaw goes on, frustration mounting. Arthur’s cot beside the wagon seems to personally offend her. It’s protected from the rain, but not much else, and in full view of the campfire. She lets out a huff. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Put him in my tent,” a voice calls.

It’s John, watching by the fire with the others. Arthur’s teeth sink into his lip hard enough to bleed. The rational part of his brain wants to punch the greasy brat, while the rapidly rising heat-crazed part wants to drop to his knees and crawl across camp to bare his neck and beg for John’s knot. _ Goddamn this heat. _ Arthur drags a hand down his sweat-drenched face.

Miss Grimshaw helps him out of the rest of his clothes, but even the chilly air isn’t enough to cool the fire simmering under his skin. He’s years past any embarrassment at his nudity. It’s nothing they ain’t all seen before, and they’re going to see plenty more of him by the time this is through.

John’s tent offers some privacy, but not much – it’s not like it does anything to mask the scent of just how badly he wants to get fucked right now. He sinks to his knees just inside the flap, while Miss Grimshaw fusses around and hollers at the girls to come help her get the tent ready.

“Ain’t I getting too old for this?” Arthur grumbles. Miss Grimshaw lets out a huff of laughter.

“Oh, no, Mister Morgan. You’ve got a good few years left in you still,” she says. She should know, Arthur supposes. She’s years past regular heats, but she knows what’s to come as well as Arthur does. She hollers again, at the same moment Karen comes into the tent.

“Alright, keep your hair on,” Karen says, rolling her eyes as she starts helping Miss Grimshaw spread blankets over the ground. She casts a sly grin at Arthur. “Those boys out there are getting pretty wild for you.”

Arthur snorts. The scents around him are enough to make him dizzy, less concentrated than Valentine but closer somehow, deeper into his core, the scent of his pack - his alphas. The building desire for them is overwhelming. Bad as Arthur wants them, he’d give anything to end this now - it ain’t the right time for a heat by far. They’re barely out of the mountains and still smarting from the Blackwater job. Their people need food, need money, need protecting from law and Pinkertons and O’Driscolls and all the other evils sons of bitches out there. They can’t afford to spend three days fucking until Arthur’s too strung out and sated to remember his own name. 

And yet, there’s a part of him that knows just how badly he needs this - to let go, just for a while. To surround himself in that heady blanket of pheromones of the pack around him, and to be taken care of. Just for a while… 

“Would someone get an alpha in here already,” he grumbles, as the desperation grows. The flap opens a second later, and Arthur turns, eager - but when it’s Tilly who comes through, Arthur lets out a groan of frustration.

“That’s not very nice, Arthur,” Tilly says, amused.

Karen laughs. “Can you blame him? Hard to be nice when all you want is some big alpha knot in you.”

Miss Grimshaw shushes them, and Tilly laughs. She’s got her arms full of assorted garments gathered from the alphas around camp, and she dumps them onto the blankets. Arthur’s hands are in them before he even knows what he’s doing, pulling something soft to his face to take a deep inhale. It’s Charles’ shirt, he thinks, or something belonging to the alpha, steeped in his scent. This will be Arthur’s first heat since Charles joined up with them. Truth is, Arthur can’t wait to be marked and bred by the new alpha, bring him fully into what it means to be a pack. He inhales again, absently moving to rub a palm over his leaking cock.

“_Oh,_” he hears, somewhere. Fingers touch his temple, warm. It’s Karen stroking his hair back. Her touch is nice, comforting, but a beta’s touch is nothing like that of an alpha’s that Arthur craves with every inch of his body. Karen leans in to take a sniff along his jaw. “You smell so nice,” she compliments, still grinning salaciously. 

“Enough!” Miss Grimshaw scolds at her. It seems they’ve finally set up a comfortable enough spot for Arthur to bed down and take everything his alphas will give him. Miss Grimshaw looks at him, imploring, and Arthur just shakes his head in an attempt to clear it.

“Just - get someone in here already,” he snaps.

Miss Grimshaw huffs as she shoos the girls out of the tent. “I’ll go find him,” she says. _ Him. _ Arthur bites back a groan at the thought.

He’s wetter than ever, slick sliding down his thighs and onto the blankets beneath him. He feels so empty that it’s starting to hurt, and he’s going to lose it if one of the alphas he can smell lurking outside doesn’t get in here and stuff a cock in him.

It’s of the utmost frustration when the next one to come into the tent is Hosea.

“Would a Goddamn alpha get in here and fuck me already?” Arthur hollers, in no direction in particular.

Hosea scoffs. “You can thank me for this later,” he says, holding out the mug.

Arthur grudgingly accepts it. The concoction of herbs tastes awful, but it will keep anything from taking during his heat. Good - the last thing he needs is a little Williamson or an Escuella, or worse, another Marston kid that John can pretend isn’t his. Arthur takes a sip of the brewed mixture, and tries not to gag.

“You make it extra bitter on purpose,” he says.

“I promise you I don’t.” The kindly look on Hosea’s face is easy enough to fake for an old con like him, but Arthur doesn’t have any reason to doubt it. Hosea’s been there for every heat Arthur’s had, always offering the same awful brewed mixture, and it seems to have worked so far, awful as it may be. Hosea puts a hand beneath the cup to lift it to Arthur’s mouth, encouraging him to take another drink. “You’ll want to finish it before-“

Before-

The tent flap opens again, and the scent of alpha that wafts in is so strong, so enticing, so utterly delicious that Hosea has to catch the mug as it slips from Arthur’s hands. Arthur’s world narrows to nothing but that scent and the desperate desire to have it all over him, in him, coating him until there’s nothing but alpha scent soaked through to his bones. His breaths come shallow, quick, desperate, and he raises his eyes to meet the alpha’s gaze.

“_Dutch,_” he says. 


End file.
